Prince Philip’s car crash illustrates how the rest of us pay for the recklessness of the privileged

BBC treats Diane Abbott and other Corbyn allies with contempt. We need to reform the media now

Newspapers are mocking Beautiful Boy, but it is the first film which accurately reflects what I have been through with addiction

If Theresa May calls another election, prepare for a ‘short and sharp’ manifesto

McDonald's must stop breeding chickens so fast that their organs fail

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For World Blood Donor Day the World Health Organisation (WHO) called on people to “Be there for someone else. Give blood. Share life.”

While the WHO’s noble cause is worth rallying behind, many groups worldwide remain unjustifiably excluded from the act of donating blood. Among them are men who have sex with men.

In the United Kingdom, only gay men who are abstinent for three months are able to donate blood, a decision many in the gay community and beyond attribute to ongoing prejudices ignited during the HIV/AIDS crisis.

In protesting the extant ban on sexually active men who have sex with men, I have chosen this milestone day to publish my first book,Visceral: The Poetry of Blood.

Public safety?

Our current blood donor policy does not reflect a concern for public safety.

If it did, our government would have implemented a truly individual risk-based assessment whereby each person is assessed according to their own personal risk.

The banning of men who have had a sexual encounter with another man in the past three months remains very much rooted in assumption and prejudice.

Under the current policy, a gay man who has had a single protected encounter of oral sex with another man in the past three months is unable to donate his blood, despite there being no evidence of HIV transmission from protected oral sex.

A heterosexual man or woman, however, with numerous unprotected penetrative sexual encounters faces no such limitation. Not only is the proscription irrational, it further burdens our community with stigma and deprives the NHS of much-needed blood donations.”

Violence and stigma

Blood is omnipresent. While itself a symbol of life, its pump is a universal icon of love. Notions as diverse as heritage and violence course through it and whole histories of shame can be found in a single drop.

For the LGBT+ community, particularly, blood epitomises the sacrifices made to achieve the rights we enjoy today.

Yet, it equally represents the violence we continue to face and the stigma we still suffer.

Visceral, by RJ Arkhipov

Poetry in gay blood

That’s why I have written a collection of poems and photographs using my own blood as ink and artistic medium.

The work explores the contemporary gay experience through the lens of blood, consisting of twenty-four poems and six essays and illustrated with photographs.

Visceral: The Poetry of Blood explores an array of themes associated with the stuff of life including family, faith, intimacy, and violence.

Prince Philip’s car crash illustrates how the rest of us pay for the recklessness of the privileged

BBC treats Diane Abbott and other Corbyn allies with contempt. We need to reform the media now

Newspapers are mocking Beautiful Boy, but it is the first film which accurately reflects what I have been through with addiction

If Theresa May calls another election, prepare for a ‘short and sharp’ manifesto

McDonald's must stop breeding chickens so fast that their organs fail

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